Vegetation - Spores and Seeds? #4

Seed Plants

Compiled by Keith Hunt
The following is taken from "ABC's of Nature - a family answer
book" by Reader's digest 1984.
All capital words are mine throughout for emphasis.
SOME PLANTS HAVE SEEDS
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
SPORES AND SEEDS?
The development of SEEDS was a GREAT LEAP FORWARD in the
history of plant life (Reader's Digest and those they had write
this book, "The ABC's of Nature" were coming from the point of
view of evolution, so to them indeed seeds were a great
leap forward from spores - Keith Hunt).
Like spores, their sole function is to produce new
generations of plants and so ensure the survival of the species.
But SEEDS accomplish this task MUCH MORE EFFICIENTLY.
Spores leave a great deal to chance. Each one consists of a
single cell that contains little or no food reserve - just a
genetic "blueprint" for a new plant. And it can germinate and
survive only if it happens to land in a place where conditions
are just right for growth. As a result, mosses, ferns, and
similar plants must produce spores by the millions to overcome
the great odds against their survival.
SEEDS, on the other hand, give the next generation a head
start in the struggle to mature into new plants. Each one
consists of many cells within a protective covering. The cells,
moreover, are usually organized into an entire embryonic plant,
one that is complete with rudimentary, root, stem, and leaves.
And in almost all cases, the seeds contain a food supply that
supports the emerging plantlet until the seedling can exist on
its own.
Seeds are so much more efficient than spores, in fact, that
the plants that bear them have become the DOMINANT VEGETATION on
earth.
TWO KINDS OF SEEDS PLANTS
First, pines, and other conifers, as well as a few other
obscure plant groups, produce seeds in CONES and other
specialized structures. The commonest seed-producers, however,
are the ENORMOUSLY VARIED FLOWERING plants.
WHICH SORT OF PLANTS PRODUCE SEEDS?
The flowering plants are the commonest, most widespread
seed-producers on earth today. Everyone is familiar with apple
trees that blossom in the spring and then, in the fall, yield
plump fruits containing "packets" of seeds - the pips - in the
cores.
On some flowering plants, the flowers, unlike the showy ones
of apple blossoms, orchids, and the like, have been greatly
modified or reduced in size, so that they do not look like
flowers at all. But the basic parts are there in one form or
another. Corn, for instance, is a flowering plant. The tassels
are clusters of pollen-producing male flowers. The ears are
formed from spikes of female flowers, and each kernel of corn is,
of course, a seed.
Certain nonflowering plants also produce seeds. The
best-known example are the conifers, such as pines, spruce, and
firs. Instead of developing from flowers, their seeds are formed
between the scales of their woody cones. One kind, the pinyon
pine of the American Southwest, produces the large edible seeds
commonly known as pinyon nuts. The "pignoli" nuts of southern
Europe are large, tasty seeds of another kind of pine.
HOW MANY KINDS OF SEED PLANTS
ARE THERE?
In all, more than 235,000 species of plants produce seeds.
The vast MAJORITY are the FLOWERING plants. The non-flowering
seed-producers - conifers and a few other types of plants -
number only about 800 species.
Botanists have special names for these two types of plants.
The non-flowering seed plants are called gymnosperms, from the
Greek for "naked seeds." This does not mean that the seeds lack
protective coverings. The term refers to the fact that the
ovules, which develop into seeds, are borne unprotected on the
bare surface of the cone scales or similar structures.
The flowering plants are called angiosperms, meaning
"enclosed seeds." Their ovules develop into seeds within the
protective enclosure of a structure called the ovary, usually
located at the center of the flower. The ovary - sometimes along
with other parts of the flower as well - matures into a fruit
encasing the seeds. Following pollination, the ovary of the
edible plum, for example, develops into a fleshly fruit with a
seed inside the stony pit at its center. Other flowering plants
bear their seeds in fruits as varied as acorns and apples,
blueberries and beans, chestnuts and cranberries.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
FLOWERING PLANTS AND CONIFERS?
The flowering plants are a varied lot indeed. In addition to
producing flowers and fruits, they differ from the conifers in
many ways. All the conifers, for instance, are woody plants that
grow as trees or shrubs; some flowering plants are trees, but the
majority are low-growing plants with soft, juicy stems. The tree
types have a much more complex and efficient circulatory system
than any of the conifers. Instead of evergreen needles or
scalelike leaves, the flowering plants bear broad leaves in a
multitude of shapes and sizes. While the conifers live for many
years, vast numbers of flowering plants can compete their life
cycles in a single growing season. All the conifers, moreover,
are pollinated by the wind. The flowering plants have a more
sophisticated system; most rely on insects or other animals to
transfer pollen to the female flower parts.
The flowering plants, in short, have become supremely
adaptable. From lawn grass and garden flowers to trees more than
100 feet tall, they include FAR MORE species than ANY OTHER plant
group on earth today.....
WHY DO PLANTS HAVE FLOWERS?
Whether large or small, colorful or inconspicuous, all
flowers have the same basic function: to produce seeds and so
perpetuate the species. They perform this role so well that the
flowering plants, or angiosperms, have become the MOST ABUNDANT
and varied group of plants on earth today.....
DO ALL FLOWERS HAVE THE SAME PARTS?
From the simplicity of buttercups to the extravagant
complexity of orchids, the forms of flowers are incredibly
diverse. Depending on the species, there may be may or few of
each of the basic parts, or some of them may have been lost
entirely.....
WHEN IS A FLOWER MANY FLOWERS?
Some flowers grow singly, one to a stem; others, such as
lilacs and lupines, grow in characteristic clusters called
inflorescences. In some cases the clusters are so compact
that people think of the whole mass as a single bloom....on
daisies each "petal" is a separate flower, and the eye at the
center is dozens of individual florets.....
ARE FLOWERING PLANTS IMPORTANT?
The flowering plants are everywhere around us. Growing as
trees, shrubs, vines, and soft-stemmed herbs, they have come to
DOMINATE most of the world's dry land. Many thrive in fresh
water, and some even live in salt water near the margins of the
sea.
These abundant, adaptable plants affect our lives in many
ways. Growing wild they are vital links in the web of life. They
protect the soil from erosion and supply valuable timber. We
cultivate many species as ornamentals or as windbreaks, and for
shade.
FLOWING PLANTS ARE THE SOURCE OF ALMOST ALL THE FOOD WE EAT
- either DIRECTLY, as grains, fruits, and vegetable, or
INDIRECTLY as milk, meat, and eggs. They also yield MEDICINES,
spices, oils, and countless other useful products.
HOW LONG DO FLOWERING PLANTS LIVE?
The life expectancies if the flowering plants differ
dramatically from species to species. A sunflower lives for less
than a year, for example, but an oak may continue to grow for
centuries.
The many plants that, like the sunflower, have their entire
life cycle compressed into a single growing season are called
annuals. They germinate, flower, set seed, and then die within a
matter of days, weeks, or months.
Biennials are plants that live for two years. They grow and
store food in their first season, remain dormant over the winter,
and then flower and die in their second year. Many garden
vegetables, such as carrots and cabbages, are biennials. But we
usually harvest them in their first year of growth, never giving
them a chance to blossom and produce seeds.
The longest-lived are the perennials, which continue to
flower and set seed year after year. Flowering trees and shrubs
are woody perennials....
HOW BIG CAN FLOWERS BE?
The largest of all blossoms are produced by RAFFLESIA, a
parasitic plant that lives in southeast Asia. Each of its giant
blossoms is up to 3 feet in diameter and commonly weighs more
than 10 pounds. Another giant of the plant world is PUYA
RAIMONDII, a South American relative of the pineapple. Although
its individual flowers are small, as many as 8,000 of them may be
clustered in huge upright spikes some 35 feet high and 8 feet
across.
At the opposite end of the scale is WOLFFIA (also known as
watermeal or duckweed), the smallest of all flowering plants.
Tiny specks of green that float on fresh water, the individual
plants are a mere FIFTIETH of an inch across. Yet from time to
time they bloom, producing male flowers, each consisting of a
single minute stamen, and female flowers, each of which is
nothing more than a tiny pistil.
DO ALL TREES HAVE FLOWERS?
Except for the conifers and other gymnosperms, all the trees
in the world are flowering plants. On some, such as magnolias,
cherries, and horse chestnuts, the blossoms are large and showy.
On others, the flowers are inconspicuous and easily overlooked -
so much so, in fact, that people are more likely to notice the
FRUIT than the flowers that produce them. The acorns on oaks, the
winged seeds of maples, and the berries on hollies are all the
product of flowering trees......
FROM FLOWERS TO FRUIT
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
A FRUIT AND A VEGETABLE?
In everyday usage, oranges and the like are called fruits;
vegetables include such edibles as carrots, asparagus, tomatoes,
and corn. Botanists, however, are more precise in their
terminology. They say that a fruit is the mature, seed-bearing
ovary of a flowering plant, sometimes with other parts of the
plant attached. Thus all the seed-containing vegetables -
eggplants and tomatoes, for example - are actually fruits. So to
are such unfruitlike fruits milkweed pods and the winged key of
maples.
Many other vegetables are not true fruits but simple edible
plant parts. Radishes and carrots are roots, lettuce and spinach
are leaves, and broccoli and cauliflower are tightly clustered
flower buds. Rhubarb, on the other hand, is commonly called a
fruit but it is not really a fruit in botanical terms; the
rosy-red stalks are edible stems of oversized leaves.
HOW DOE A FLOWER BECOME A FRUIT?
Only the FLOWERING plants produce fruits. The process begins
when pollen fertilizes an egg inside an ovule. While the ovule is
developing into a SEED, the ovary (the flower part that holds the
ovule) goes through changes of its own. In some cases the
ovary wall develops exocarp, a middle mesocarp, and an inner
layer called the endocarp. All three layers together make up the
pericarp.
The layers are most obvious in cherries, peaches, plums, and
the other stone fruits, which are known as drupes. In a peach for
example, the thin fuzzy skin is the exocarp, the juicy flesh is
the mesocarp, and the stony pit that encloses the seed is the
endocarp.
Apples develop differently. In their case, the pericarp
forms only the seed-containing care at the center of the fruit.
The edible flesh is formed by the enlargement of the floral tube
that originally surrounded the ovary. Apples, pears, quinces, and
all the other core fruits are called pomes.
ARE ALL FRUITS FLESHY?
Only berries, pomes, drupes, and a few other kinds of fruits
are moist and fleshy. Many more are dry, with woody or papery
pericarps. The pods of peas and beans, for example, are called
legumes. They are usually harvested and eaten while still green
and moist, but if allowed to mature on the plants, they
eventually dry out and split open to release their seeds. The
long, slender pods of mustard plants are dry fruits of another
type, known as siliques, while the winged fruits of maples and
elms are samaras.
In the case of true NUTS such as hazelnuts, the oily meat
that we eat is the seed and the hard shell is the pericarp. The
sunflower seeds that we feed to birds are yet another example of
dry fruits, of a kind technically known as achenes. Birds crack
open the tough outer covering - the pericarp - to get at the true
seed inside.
IS THE BLUEBERRY A TRUE BERRY?
Berries in botanical terms, include such seemingly diverse
fruits as grapes and tomatoes, avocados and eggplants. All are
alike in being simple fruits with entirely fleshy pericarps that
enclose one or more seeds. The citrus fruits such as oranges are
also a type of berry, distinguished by the possession of a
leathery outer rind.
Blueberries, on the other hand, are classed as false
berries. Although berrylike at first glance, the mature fruits
are formed from other floral parts in addition to the ovary
wall. Look closely and you can see remnants of the sepals still
attached to the tip of each fruit. Watermelons, cucumbers, and
squashes are false berries of another type, called pepos. Like
blueberries, they have at least part of the outer skin derived
from the floral tube that encased the ovary.
Blackberries and raspberries, in contrast, are not berries
at all. Each segment of a ripe raspberry is actually a separate
fruit that developed from one of many individual ovaries in a
single flower. All grew together as they matured to form that
botanists call an aggregate fruit. The individual segments are
drupelets, comparable in structure to miniature cherries.
WHY DO FRUITS CHANGE COLOR AS
THEY RIPEN?
The fleshy fruits undergo many COMPLEX CHANGES as they
approach maturity. Color is the most obvious. Tomatoes turn from
GREEN to RED, plums become RED or BLUE and so on. Flesh that was
hard and sour, bitter, or otherwise unpalatable frequently
becomes soft, juicy, sweet, and fragrant.
All these changes are related to the fruit's role in
reproduction. The green color of immature fruit helps keep it
hidden among the plant's foliage. Unpleasant flavors also
deter animals from eating it before the seeds are fully matured.
Ripe fruit, colorful and succulent, on the other hand,
offers an irresistible invitation to hungry birds and other
creatures. When they eat the fruits, small seeds pass unharmed
through their digestive tracts and later are deposited far from
the parent plant, along with a dose of natural fertilizer. If the
seeds are too big to swallow, animals are likely to drag
them off and eat it elsewhere, leaving the seeds to sprout when
conditions are favorable.
ARE NUTS A SPECIAL KIND OF FRUIT?
Acorns are the most familiar examples of the kinds of fruits
that are classed as nuts. Each consists of a single seed enclosed
in a hard seamless shell. In most cases the nut is covered by
modified leaves called bracets. The cups of acorns are made up
of many scalelike bracts. On hazelnuts, another true nut, the
bracts are thin and leaflike.
Many of the things commonly called nuts are really the
edible parts of various other kinds of fruits. Peanuts are the
seeds of pealike plants; they grow underground in legumelike
pods. Coconuts are the inner parts of large dry drupes; their
thick, fibrous husks, removed before shipment, are comparable to
the flesh of a peach. Almonds are the seeds of another stone
fruit. Brazil nuts, cashews, and pistachios are other familiar
examples of "nuts" that are not true nuts.
HOW DO STRAWBERRIES DEVELOP?
Succulent strawberries, studded with tiny seeds, are among
the most deceptive of fruits. Like blackberries and raspberries,
they are aggregate fruits., each one formed from a single flower
that contained many separate ovaries. But in the case of
strawberries, each ovary matures into a dry, one-seeded achene.
Thus the "seeds" are actually individual dry fruits. The juicy
red edible part of the strawberry is the much enlarged, fleshy
receptacle, the tip of the flower stem to which the ovaries were
attached.
Pineapples are even stranger, for they form, not from one,
but from a whole cluster of flowers and fuse into a single fleshy
mass. The bulk of the pineapple's flesh is formed from the many
individual flowers; the tough inner core develops from the
upright stalk on which the flower grew.
HOW BIG CAN FRUITS BECOME?
The ovary that gives rise to a fruit often enlarges
ENORMOUSLY as it matures. A full-grown tomato, for instance, may
be as much as 100,000 times the size of the ovary from which it
developed, and an avocado 300,000 times its original size.
Not surprising, some of the largest fruits are produced by
cultivated plants, which are of course selectively bred. Some
varieties of watermelon yield fruits that weigh 50 pounds, and
100-pound pumpkins are a common sight at country fairs. But the
record may well be held by a squash raised by an Indiana family
in 1977; it weighed 513 pounds (that record has probably been
beaten now, as this book from Reader's Digest was published in
1984 - Keith Hunt).
It is difficult to say which fruit is the smallest, since
many plants produce tiny dry fruits that we ordinarily think of
as seeds. Each "seed" of a daisy, dandelion, or buttercup, for
example, is a complete fruit in and of itself.
ALL SORTS OF SEEDS
ARE ALL SEEDS THE SAME INSIDE?
When corn sprouts, only a single leaf lifts out of the kernel.
For corn belongs to the group of plants called monocots; "mono"
means "one" and "cot" refers to the cotyledon, or seed leaf, that
forms inside the seed. Beans are dicots: in contrast to corn, a
sprouting bean seed unfolds two seed leaves.
This division into monocots and dicots is the major one
among flowering plants.....The most important group of monocots
is the GRASS family, which includes corn, wheat, rice, oats, and
other cereal grains as well as lawn and pasture grasses.
Orchids, lilies, palms, and bananas are also monocots.
The flowering plant that is not monocot is a dicot. There
are many MORE dicots than monocots......
WHICH SEEDS ARE GIANTS AND WHICH
ARE DWARFS?
You can't tell how big a plant will grow by looking at its
seeds. Nor is the actual height of the plant much of a clue to
the size of its seeds. A pea, for example, is the seed of a
rather humble plant - yet it is FAR larger than that of the
redwood - the world's tallest tree.
The largest seed of all is the COCO-DE-MER, the impressive
product of a palm that grows on the Seychelles Islands, in the
Indian Ocean. Weighing 40 pounds or more, the huge double-lobed
coco-de-mer can measure 18 inches long and more than 8 inches
thick.
The SMALLEST are seeds of a witchweed plant native to Asia,
which measure less than a thousandth of an inch long. Orchids,
too, have very small seeds, some so lightweight that there are 30
million to the ounce. WHY DO PLANTS PRODUCE SEEDS?
Seeds are MORE than a way for plants to perpetuate
themselves, more than a way for plants to "sit out" such hostile
conditions as cold and drought. Seeds are also the means by which
plants travel - mostly for a short distance but sometimes for
hundreds or even thousands of miles......The force that most
frequently propels seeds from place to place is the wind.....
Tumbleweeds are perhaps the most spectacular wind travellers.
Once their seeds have developed, the round plant balls break off
at ground level and roll across the landscape, scattering the
seeds as they tumble along.
Water also helps fruits and seeds to travel about. Heavy
rains wash them short distances; floods carry them for many
miles. Some seeds transported by water have special "equipment"
that helps them travel - the spongy tissues of the coconut and
the water lily fruit, for example.
DO ANIMALS SPREAD SEEDS?
....Some fruits and seeds, such as those of sticktights and
avens, are equipped with hooks or barbs that cling to feathers
and fur; they may ride along for miles before they fall
off......Seeds swallowed by animals may pass through the
digestive system intact, then sprout where they had been
deposited......
AREN'T SOME SEEDS "SHOT" AWAY
FROM THE PARENT PLANT?
As fruits ripen, physical tension may build up inside them,
and eventually the seeds inside are FORCIBLY expelled. If you
tough the seedpod of a touch-me-not (also called Impatiens and
jewelweed), it rips apart and throws its seeds a distance of six
feet or more. Some violet pods also "explode" to release their
seeds; squirting cucumbers send out their seeds in a fluid jet.
DO SEEDS EVER SPROUT ON THE
PLANT ITSELF?
A squash called the chayote, native to the American tropics
and subtropics, looks somewhat like a bleached green pepper. If
left on the vine to develop (human hand may pick it first), it
sprouts a new vine from its tip. And so, when the squash falls to
the ground, it is already a growing plant, having only to put out
roots to establish itself in the soil.
This growth of the seed while still attached to its parent
is called viviparity - the same term (it means "live birth") used
for animals whose young develop inside the mother's body.
Viviparity occurs in a number of other plants.....
HOW LONG DOES A SEED STAY ALIVE?
Some seeds remain alive, or viable, for only a few days
after they mature; unless they germinate right away, they will
not germinate at all. Others, particularly those growing
in cool climates, need a period of dormancy before they can
sprout - a fact that enables them to survive during the cold
winter months.
But if kept cool and dry, most seeds remain viable for more
than from one season to the next, delaying their germination
until conditions become suitable. The longevity record belongs to
an Arctic lupine. Seeds stored in a northern lemming burrow some
10,000 years ago and then frozen were washed out recently in a
mining operation. Most amazingly, some of them sprouted and
actually grew into healthy plants.
WHAT DO PEOPLE USE SEEDS FOR?
Seeds are the MOST IMPORTANT food on earth. All of the
GRAINS (wheat, corn, rice, rye, among others) plus BEANS, PEAS,
PEANUTS, SOYBEAN, and other legumes are SEEDS eaten DIRECTLY by
man. Seed-eating poultry and livestock convert plant material
into animal PROTEIN, which eventually become human food. SEEDS
supply vegetable oils used in cooking and in soaps, paints,
lubricants, and other products. Some seeds and add spice to our
lives - among them, mustard, pepper, and caraway. We also
consume SEEDS when we drink COFFEE, COCOA, and certain alcoholic
beverages.
END QUOTES
God law of vegetation was not and is not ALL encompassing,
it is EXCLUSIVE but not INCLUSIVE of ALL seed bearing plants on
earth. For some seed-bearing plants like those from the
"nightshades" family are poisonous to the degree of either making
you sick to the stomach, giving you hallucinations, interference
with breathing and circulation, or sometimes even death.
God's overall vegetation law is as was shown in previous
studies, to be vegetation from those plants which were green and
seed-bearing (an EXCLUSIVE LAW, not an inclusive). All the
vegetation that was not green and seed producing was to be
avoided.
THE PROBLEM WITH GENESIS 9:3
IF THERE IS NO VEGETATION LAW
Some, even most I would say, among those Churches of God
that DO teach that God's clean and unclean foods laws are still
to be observed today by Christians, would say that there never
was a "vegetation" law. They would say you can eat whatever from
the vegetation world as long as it does not make you sick in one
way or another or kill you.
If that is so, if that was ALWAYS so, right from the
beginning, that the Eternal never ever had a "vegetation food
law" then for those who have always believed or taught that the
meat unclean and clean laws of animals, birds, insects, and fish,
WAS FROM THE BEGINNING, THERE IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM in what we
read in Genesis 9:3.
Back up some first. We have the clear statement in Genesis
chapter 7 that Noah was to take SEVEN pair of CLEAN animals on
board the Ark and ONE pair of unclean animals. Most Churches that
teach the clean and unclean food laws were from the very
beginning, point to this section of Scripture to point out that
obviously Noah knew which animals were "clean" and which animals
were "unclean." It is obvious from this that there was some kind
of teaching or law from God to Noah at least, about clean and
unclean animals. Now are we to suppose they were clean if they
did not crawl around in the mud and unclean if they did wallow in
the mud or bogs or swampy ponds? I really do not think this is
what God had in mind concerning the orders to Noah about seven
pair of clean and one pair of unclean animals to come aboard the
Ark.
It would seem indeed that God had clean and unclean animal
food laws from the beginning. It sure would seem it was certainly
there at the time Noah was to enter the Ark. Now after Noah came
out from the Ark and the waters were dried up from the land,
God tells Noah something in Genesis chapter 9 and verse 3. There
is only one fair and consistent way to read and understand this
verse for those who believe there was NEVER any vegetation law.
For such a belief, verse 3 is then clearly saying that God had
given Noah the right and permission to EAT ANYTHING that moved or
lived (again of course as long as it did not kill you, or make
you violently ill within a short space of time).
Really, let's be honest, we who believe there was an animal
food law from the beginning but NOT a vegetation law. If that was
so, then here in verse 3 of Genesis chapter 9, God is REMOVING
ALL FOOD LAWS!!!
It is just that simple, to understand, it is just that
LOGICAL, it takes no degree in theology. If there never was a
food vegetation law, but there was an animal food law of clean
and unclean, then here after Noah left the Ark and started to
live again on the land, God was REMOVING ALL FOOD LAWS!!!
Hence to take this one step further, as SOME have indeed put
forth the argument, the food laws of clean and unclean were never
to do with diet or health of the body in the first place, but had
to do with....well you go figure what they then had to do
with....maybe sacrifices, maybe some strange "make holy" and then
"not make holy" ritual of some kind, that God dreamed up for one
generation and not for another. Such being, if that was the
case, then there can be a reasonable logical argument that under
the New Covenant a Christian is under no obligation to observe
any so-called "food laws" from a health perspective, as there
never was really any health food laws at any time, in any age,
since Adam and Eve.
I personally do NOT believe such theology. I believe and
teach there were ALWAYS food laws from the beginning, both in the
vegetation and animal world. God is again RE-iterating to Noah
some of the very things He fist gave to Adam and Eve. He
is again re-stating (God often repeats Himself over and over
again, so mankind will get the point, you know they say
repetition is one of the best ways to learn something) that
man (now with Noah and his three sons and their wives) will be
given a ruling hand over the physical live forms on earth (verse
2) and that the laws of animal (moving things of land, sea and
air) eating will still REMAIN as the laws of vegetation still
remain. The first part of verse 3 is QUALIFIED by the last part
of verse 3.
This is a section of re-iterating many things first given to
Adam and Eve, just as God told Adam and Eve to multiply and
replenish the earth (Genesis 1) so God re-states it again to Noah
in Genesis 9. As God told Adam and Eve to have dominion over the
physical life forms on earth, so He again re-states such to Noah
and his family in chapter nine.
I'm sure God went into much more detail on these things with
Adam and Eve and with Noah, we are just given a nut-shell of it
all.
Genesis chapter 9 is NOT proof that God was abolishing the
clean and unclean animal food laws.
The world has wondered away over the centuries from eating
ONLY the things God has created for us to eat. As I've said
before in a previous study, modern 21st century scientists, who
have no religious axe to grind, now claim and admit that 70 to 80
percent of all illnesses, sicknesses, and diseases, are CAUSED
directly by what we put into our stomachs. The majority of the
world is eating too many unclean things as God defines unclean in
His food laws. Then we have an ever increasing population of the
world eating far too much processed and refined food products,
where most of the natural goodness has been taken out. We then
add chemicals in growing and packaging, to put insult upon
injury. We have refined or fried foods with trans-fats that are
adding pounds to North American people, who are now statistically
the fattest people on earth (of course part of that is because we
eat way too much of those fried trans-fat foods). Our children
are obese as never before. In the early 80s it was 5% of our
children that were obese, but today in 2003 (as I compile this)
it is 15.5% of children that are obese. Another statistic is that
80% of diabetics are diabetic because of the life style of foods
they eat, only 20% of diabetics are true diabetics. Then we have
all the ills and sicknesses that result directly from smoking
cigarettes. We have a number of serious sicknesses and deseases
because of sexual immorality most of the world indules in. Many
diseases are caused by a lack of clean fresh water and sanitation
(that is common in third world countries), which are also laws of
God.
Yes, put all this together, and I think we can see why
scientists are now saying 70 to 80 percent of diseases are caused
by eating habits and other health laws like sanitation, clean
water, and sexual purity.
Eating seed producing fruits and vegetables (as organic as
possible - many large grocery stores now have sections of organic
produce) should be AT LEAST 50% of our diet. I will bring a few
studies on basic laws of health from those who have made "food
and health studies" their life long work.
Our body is the Temple of God, and the Lord excepts us to
look after it.
.........................
Compiled July 2003